Loyalism in Delaware was persistent, complex, and never fully suppressed. Sussex County was the most active center, but Loyalist sympathies ran throughout the state, making this a genuine civil conflict within communities rather than a contained one. Motivations ranged from principled attachment to the Crown to resentment of wartime taxation. Two major uprisings are worth noting: Cheney Clow's Rebellion in Kent County (1778), which ended with Clow's controversial hanging, and the Black Camp Rebellion (1780) in Sussex, where a portion of the hundreds of armed Loyalists were apprehended, only to escape when the jails were apparently left unlocked—an apparent show of state restraint. Loyalist privateers and Refugee whaleboats out of New York raided far inland until John Dickinson’s newly reformed militia began to curb them in 1782.
Interviewees
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Charles Fithian
- Delaware Archeologist, Delaware Historical Society
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Joseph Sullivan
- Welcome Center Supervisor, Delaware Public Archives
